Tag: Hafez al-Assad

by JULIE POUCHER HARBIN for ISLAMiCommentary on SEPTEMBER 27, 2013: A panel of Duke scholars discussed the ongoing crisis in Syria at a talk hosted by the Duke Islamic Studies Center’s ISLAMiCommentary project this week. The group — which included Phil Bennett (Director, DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy), Abdeslam Maghraoui (Associate Professor of the Practice, Political […]

by ALON BEN-MEIR for THE HUFFINGTON POST on JULY 7, 2013: The question raised by the ouster of Egypt’s President Morsi is whether Islam is compatible with democracy or any form of government that empowers the people and limits the power of leaders to hold merely representative offices with limited terms of public service. Islam […]

by JULIE POUCHER HARBIN, EDITOR, ISLAMiCommentary on OCTOBER 31, 2012: With the weekend Eid al Adha “ceasefire” broken in Syria, and continuous fighting since, there appears to be less and less hope of a resolution to the sectarian conflict in Syria that is turning into a civil war and an international quagmire. Noted Syria scholar, […]

by NAJAH DIMASHQIEH for INSTITUTE FOR WAR AND PEACE REPORTING (IWPR’S SYRIA PROGRAMME) on SEPTEMBER 20, 2012: Revolution is a struggle to dislodge the Assad regime, not the internecine conflict it is sometimes portrayed as. The Syrian revolution that erupted in March 2011 and is still continuing tends to be interpreted in too superficial a manner by the international […]

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by SAFAA AL-SAEEDI for ISLAMiCommentary on JUNE 28, 2016: Can we have an honest conversation; Yemeni to American ? Though many of you want to believe that Muslims are peaceful and they should be treated justly, I understand that at the same time you can’t make sense of all the atrocities committed in the name […]

by JULIE POUCHER HARBIN, EDITOR, ISLAMiCommentary, with DR. BAHAR HASHEMI for ISLAMiCommentary on JUNE 24, 2016: San Francisco Bay Area child psychiatrist Bahar Hashemi, MD, has been volunteering in Palestine for the past 10 years, mainly in Jerusalem and the West Bank cities of Hebron, Bethlehem and Ramallah. Following the seven-week Israeli military attack on Gaza […]

Column » ‘By the Book’ with Joseph Preville by JOSEPH RICHARD PREVILLE and JULIE POUCHER HARBIN for ISLAMiCommentary on JUNE 20, 2016: Has Nostra Aetate – the Catholic Church’s declaration on relations with non-Christian religions — stood the test of time? Passed by a wide margin at the Second Vatican Council and promulgated on October […]

compiled by JULIE POUCHER HARBIN, EDITOR, ISLAMiCommentary on JUNE 13, 2016: *UPDATED ON JUNE 14, 2016 American Muslims were quick to condemn the mass shooting over the weekend at the popular gay nightclub “Pulse” in Orlando, Florida that left at least 49 dead and 53 injured, some critically. The New York Times (and other outlets) reported that during a series of […]

by ALI OLOMI for ISLAMiCommentary on MARCH 30, 2016: In March 2016 Payam Feili, a young Iranian poet, took refuge in Israel because he faced persecution in his home country for being openly gay. Feili’s situation is not unique for many LGBTQ individuals in the Middle East. Homosexuality is a crime in nearly two dozen […]

by SHALOM GOLDMAN for ISLAMiCommentary on JUNE 6, 2016: What does the latest political shift to the Right within Israel’s ruling coalition portend for Palestinians and Israeli Arabs ? Signaled by the May 26th appointment of two-time Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman as Defense Minister, this shift to the Right is at present more symbolic than policy-oriented. But in a country where there […]

Column » ‘By the Book’ with Joseph Preville by JOSEPH RICHARD PREVILLE and JULIE POUCHER HARBIN for ISLAMiCommentary on JUNE 20, 2016: Has Nostra Aetate – the Catholic Church’s declaration on relations with non-Christian religions — stood the test of time? Passed by a wide margin at the Second Vatican Council and promulgated on October […]

compiled by JULIE POUCHER HARBIN, EDITOR, ISLAMiCommentary on June 2, 2016: Our ISLAMiCommentary web site, managed out of the Duke Islamic Studies Center in partnership with the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations at UNC-Chapel Hill, will cease production on June 30, 2016, with the end of the grant […]

Column » Comics & Dialogue: Islam in Graphic Novels by A. DAVID LEWIS for ISLAMiCommentary on APRIL 14, 2015: New York Times best-selling graphic novelist Joshua Dysart has written about serial killers, about superheroes, and about the supernatural. Now, with Living Level-3, he brings his talent for dark themes to the real-life humanitarian crisis in Iraq. […]

by JULIE POUCHER HARBIN, EDITOR, ISLAMiCommentary on DECEMBER 17, 2015: We at the Duke Islamic Studies Center are pleased to announce that the work of the Carnegie Corporation of New York-supported Transcultural Islam Project (ISLAMiCommentary and TIRN) has been highlighted in a new report by the Social Science Research Council — “Religion, Media and the […]